As far as you can go without a passport

How often do we take for granted that we can easily ride to the end of the earth, where the Pacific Ocean meets land? Bike+legs+desire and you’re there. That’s pretty amazing if you think about it.

This was one of those days where you were very thankful the weather folk screwed up! No rain, light breeze, moderate temperatures. Sure, if we’d left a 9am it would have been wet out there from last night’s rain, but that’s not our style. Not Kevin’s anyway; we got out around 10:45 this morning, which, for my family, is early.

Today was a mild variant of the “Coastal Classic”- the usual up Old LaHonda, over Haskins, but then, instead of Stage Road north to Tunitas, we rode the coast the entire way. Kevin doesn’t like Stage Road, probably because it’s one of those rare climbs that he can’t ride me into the ground. The Old LaHonda section became a bit more stressful than normal when Kevin had a seizure about 3/4 of the way up and wanted to turn back; he wasn’t very happy with my insistence that we continue on. Experience has shown that he’s pretty much back to normal within 20 minutes, and today was no exception. It’s not fun debating the merits of continuing with him, and I’m obviously sympathetic to what he goes through, but epilepsy can’t run his life.

He probably had his best time yet up Haskins, but his Garmin apparently cut out on him somewhere during that segment so Strava doesn’t show it. And if Strava doesn’t show it, then it didn’t happen. Hate that! Later Kevin made a comment that he was only going to use Strava for another 20 years. An odd remark that I asked for elaboration on. “From 40 on, Strava’s only going to give you bad news.” Ouch.

Kevin gives me “The Look” just before the infamous Bridge of Death on Tunitas CreekAn unusual event at the mandatory Pescadero bakery stop- no other cyclists! Beautiful day and nobody out there. Guess they must have been scared off by the weather reports. The run north on the coast (instead of the usual Stage Road) was interesting mostly because it was different; I prefer Stage Road for its quietness and changing terrain, but it was nice to do something different for a change. And thankfully, there was a rare mild tailwind in that direction too!

As for Tunitas, what can you say that hasn’t been said? It wasn’t a fast day on the climb, nor a completely-dreadful one either. Kevin was a bit ahead of me on the steepest sections, with me catching up where it leveled out. Got to admit the effort felt a lot faster than the time indicated! And yes, I’m sure it was more difficult because I missed riding Thursday.